QuoteEdit: Just found the Cat, Domestic entry in MM2. OK, there is a lot of shit in that book! Having been bitten badly by a cat I was trying to put in a cat box, I suppose that in 3e you could say a cat bite does 1 hp non-lethal damage, but can only attack if you are grappling it at the time...

Yeah, thinking back to my old cats, and the time we had to bathe the large male after a run in with some rather sticky stuff-he resembled something between a housecat a panther-their damage is non-lethal but had we not been wearing the heavy gloves I'm pretty sure we would have taken *quite* a bit.  He certainly was rolling 20s on his grapple checks and was attacking several times a round.

Quote from: Azzy;725731Yeah, thinking back to my old cats, and the time we had to bathe the large male after a run in with some rather sticky stuff-he resembled something between a housecat a panther-their damage is non-lethal but had we not been wearing the heavy gloves I'm pretty sure we would have taken *quite* a bit.  He certainly was rolling 20s on his grapple checks and was attacking several times a round.

Hell a kitten I owned as a kid made a serious attempt to kill a friend of mine!

As in, he jumped right for the throat! The two of them couldn't be in the same room. Said friend had, unsurprisingly, been a total asshole to said kitten and had it coming...happily it went well, as in "nobody was hurt" but man. I've seen mad dogs and all, hell been chased by a couple, but they're nothing compared to that cat - when that kitty got mad, we're talking MAD mad.

The thing about cats is, they're lovely, wonderful creatures, but they're also Conan-esque in a way.

Quote from: jibbajibba;725724I have killed 1st level folks with my wizard's familiar, a crow, does it count?

Maybe. Was it AD&D?

The funny thing is that I'm actually cool with familiars being tougher than normal animals. They're magical beings, with a supernatural link to a magic-user/wizard. But if we examine AD&D more carefully, we see that small innocuous animals can be a challenge for low-level guys.

Quote from: jibbajibbaI have seen 1st level PCs die to pin traps in locks - the trap does 1 point of damage and a save v poison, and I have seen them through being hit by small rocks thrown by little kids.

I have no problem with people croaking from poison, although AD&D doesn't seem to allow any nuance for lethal toxins. Instant death or nothing all the time doesn't really do it for me. Some damage or secondary effects would be nice.

And as for rocks, they can definitely hurt. It's not like getting shot, but it still sucks.

AD&D does have nonlethal poisons (paralytic ones frex), and most of the lethal ones would be lethal to low-level characters but not to higher-level ones (as in doing HP dmg rather than instakill).

Quote from: The Ent;725734Hell a kitten I owned as a kid made a serious attempt to kill a friend of mine!

As in, he jumped right for the throat! The two of them couldn't be in the same room. Said friend had, unsurprisingly, been a total asshole to said kitten and had it coming...happily it went well, as in "nobody was hurt" but man. I've seen mad dogs and all, hell been chased by a couple, but they're nothing compared to that cat - when that kitty got mad, we're talking MAD mad.

The thing about cats is, they're lovely, wonderful creatures, but they're also Conan-esque in a way.

And cat-inflicted wounds are, apparently, especially prone to infection compared to those of other common animals. 1st level wizards don't stand a chance...

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;725703That's your response? Really? Please remove your infernal Gygaxian tunnel vision, and admit that numbers have an actual meaning. According to the numbers for the actual game mechanics of fucking cats, they're a legitimate match for many normal humans, demi-humans, and humanoids. Even smaller critters....such as rats, squirrels, and crows are a slight problem for zero-level guys, via their game mechanics. Stats don't lie.

You know this. Don't pretend to be dumber than you really are, out of some sense of misguided Gygaxian loyalty and grognardian dogma. Hit points in D&D have never scaled well.

This is not a deal-breaker for me, as I can just work around it, but it certainly is an annoyance. It can create comically stupid situations, making the reader wonder if Gygax was just trying to be funny. I mean, he didn't intentionally scale the hit point system this way, did he? For the sake of sanity, I certainly hope not.

I will point out that D&D was derived out of Chainmail. In Chainmail one hit killed one person. This was expanded to a hit being 1d6 damage and a person having 1d6 hitpoints. Given this there is a lower limit on how small D&D can scale.

Contrast with GURPS, Hero, or Runequest, because of the added detail they provide for human scale character, smaller scale creatures work out better mechanically.

However the only system I found to handle the issue of scale elegantly is Fudge. In Fudge there are scale attributes that have specific effects. The normal attributes (say strength, dex, etc) represent the creature relative power among creatures of similar scale.

For example a normal human has scale of +0. If he has a strength of +2 is represents how strong he is among similar size humans. A grizzly bear has a size scale of +4 representing its size. A particular bear might have a strength of -1 meaning among bears and other similar size creature it is weak.

However if it attacked a human it does with a effective strength of +3. It size scale (+4) + strength (-1) = +3.

Also size scale factors into ability to resist damage. If the above bear had a Fortitude of +1 it resists damage more than other creatures of similar size. However for a human striking it, it becomes +5 as you have to add in the size scale of +4.

However attribute like the bear's dexterity or intelligence are NOT affected by the size scale.

In a Fudge game involving high speed vehicles one may use a speed scale and Fudge supports other types of scaling.

In Fudge a house cat has a size scale -7 compared to a normal human.

Quote from: CRKrueger;725662Any Mook rules, by definition, are metagame mechanics.  No thanks.

Yup, a game where a mighty paladin can't get stabbed in the back unto death by the tipsy stableboy jealous lover of his mistress while he dances at the fall masquerade in a tragic case of mistaken identity with profound consequences for the whole kingdom for years to come is a game I don't want to play.

Quote from: TristramEvans;725698Hit Points became disassociated the first time they were applied to falling damage

Hit points are fine in and of themselves. If we want to talk about dissociated mechanics in D&D all we need to do is look at levels. Mixing levels with hit points, and with everything else, is where it all starts to careen off a cliff of dissociation.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;725752And cat-inflicted wounds are, apparently, especially prone to infection compared to those of other common animals. 1st level wizards don't stand a chance...

Don't get hit by a cat in Harnmaster. Man that game's disease rules can be brutal.

Quote from: The Traveller;725757Yup, a game where a mighty paladin can't get stabbed in the back unto death by the tipsy stableboy jealous lover of his mistress while he dances at the fall masquerade in a tragic case of mistaken identity with profound consequences for the whole kingdom for years to come is a game I don't want to play.

I guess you're a fan of Rolemaster?

A hobbit with a whip can kill a dragon in one stroke (it takes fantastic luck, of course, though) in it...

Quote from: The Ent;725760I guess you're a fan of Rolemaster?

A hobbit with a whip can kill a dragon in one stroke (it takes fantastic luck, of course, though) in it...

It's an interesting system for sure. I mean when you think about it, a guy armed with a bottle full of petrol and a rag stuffed in the top can technically take out a modern battle tank if he gets lucky enough.

Quote from: The Traveller;725757

Quote from: TristramEvans;725698Hit Points became disassociated the first time they were applied to falling damage

Hit points are fine in and of themselves. If we want to talk about dissociated mechanics in D&D all we need to do is look at levels. Mixing levels with hit points, and with everything else, is where it all starts to careen off a cliff of dissociation.

As an aside.

Going to an extreme, wonder if there's any video games where AC and other attributes are entirely replaced with "hit points".  Essentially parameterizing almost-everything (ie. health, armor, levels, size, etc ...) into a single HP number.

For tabletop rpg games, such an extreme parametrization as a single HP figure would be too obvious and looks kinda silly.  But for a video game that is completely proprietary closed source, the only way to figure out the game's mechanics would be to disassemble the game's executable files and tediously reconstruct the code.

Quote from: The Traveller;725761It's an interesting system for sure. I mean when you think about it, a guy armed with a bottle full of petrol and a rag stuffed in the top can technically take out a modern battle tank if he gets lucky enough.

Well, roll 95-00 enough times and I'm sure he could put a dent in a battleship... Okay now I'm being silly. But it's a quirk of the system - and of course it is possible, I guess, if extremely unlikely.

Always liked Rolemaster myself (and also Blacky the Blackball's RM + D&D hybrid pseudo-retroclone).

Quote from: CRKrueger;725662A Fire Giant Minion is antithetical to the very idea of a Fire Giant.  When you look in the dictionary under Dissociated Mechanics, you see Minion as a Prime Example.

Any Mook rules, by definition, are metagame mechanics.  No thanks.

Hit points are metagame. They were derived from a naval warfare wargame out of convenience. They simulate nothing. How else to explain that in perilous combat, through battle and wounds and blows and fire, a character continues to function at 100 per cent effectiveness until he hits a numerical threshold, then he dies. It's one of the gamiest mechanics ever devised for an RPG. There are literally hundreds of RPGs that use a more realistic combat system than AD&D.

And people are going to quibble over weak monsters dropping from one hit?

Quote from: CRKrueger;725696It helps to know the definition of the term you're discussing.

Seriously, abstracted mechanics are not dissociated mechanics.  Even the most highly abstracted of all the D&D mechanics, Hit Points, only becomes dissociated without GM common sense, of course that era of game stressed GM common sense instead of RAW.

HPs are abstracted mechanics used to aid the speed of play and convenience at the table. So are minions.

I've played D&D since 1979, and I eventually came up with my own minion rules because tracking the HP of every single hobgoblin in every single combat became an exercise in fun-destroying tedium.

Quote from: CRKrueger;725701Yep, which is why if you don't like it back then you use Gary's alternate damage rules or just use common sense and give them a saving throw.

Now do that with dissociated mechanics in 4e - see you when you finish making your own game.

Tell you what. I'm running 4E Essentials right now. I don't intend to use minion for powerful monsters like fire giants. When the time comes around for me to disregard the minion rules, I'll be sure to let you know if the game is totally ruined and we have to stop playing.

Quote from: Haffrung;725779Hit points are metagame. They were derived from a naval warfare wargame out of convenience. They simulate nothing. How else to explain that in perilous combat, through battle and wounds and blows and fire, a character continues to function at 100 per cent effectiveness until he hits a numerical threshold, then he dies.

There's nothing that says HP can't be combined with a death spiral or hit locations.

Quote from: ggroy;725762As an aside.

Going to an extreme, wonder if there's any video games where AC and other attributes are entirely replaced with "hit points".  Essentially parameterizing almost-everything (ie. health, armor, levels, size, etc ...) into a single HP number.

For tabletop rpg games, such an extreme parametrization as a single HP figure would be too obvious and looks kinda silly.  But for a video game that is completely proprietary closed source, the only way to figure out the game's mechanics would be to disassemble the game's executable files and tediously reconstruct the code.

Right off the top of my head: Final Fantasy XIII. No defense stat, no armor "stat", just hit points and pieces of equipment that increased your number of hit points. I kind of admired the simplicity, transparency, and honesty of it. (There are a lot of unorthodox things I admire about that game, which puts me at odds with a rather vocal minority of fans who despise every part of it)

Which reminds me - Ever notice that in most Final Fantasy games combatants almost never miss? Instead, it's as if they totally skip the "to hit" roll and use the abstraction of hit points and damage to represent a poor attack instead. Like this: "Ooh, you rolled very low for damage against a creature with very high HP, so in this abstraction it's as if you swung wide and the creature only tired itself out a little bit to avoid it."

Are there any tabletop RPGs out there that exploit the abstraction of HP to the fullest like that?